


skywards

by minatsu



Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Future Fic, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-14 09:18:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18049778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minatsu/pseuds/minatsu
Summary: “I’m going to find my sky,” he says.Post-000, original character(s).





	skywards

She stands there, a lone figure in the middle of the open garden, her eyes gazing upwards.

He stays by the stairs, watching her yearn for the world above before he calls her name, “Djeeta.”

Djeeta turns around, smiles, the light of the sun framed around her head from behind. “Sandalphon,” she says and stops, frowning as she visibly struggles, as if to find a word, or a sentence.

He helps her: “You want to become a skyfarer.” It’s no secret; he’s expected it for a while.

Her face brightens, her smile returning to where it belongs. “Yes!” Excitedly, she comes closer and, for an instant, he’s reminded of a girl in blue. “You told me so much, and I’ve read the stories left behind. I can’t help but think there’s an entire world out there I want to see.” Quickly, as if expecting him to stop her, she continues in a rush, “We’ve saved up, all of us, to buy a ship. Gran’s learnt how to steer one and Zooey said she’ll come with us if we want her to–”

“You should go.”

“–and I’ve been practising all year so I…” Djeeta stops talking and smiles even more brightly. “We want to go before the end of the week. I kept trying to find a time to tell you, but it was always hard to say.”

“Did you think I would stop you?” Sandalphon asks in amusement, putting a hand on her head as she walks closer and leans onto him.

Grinning upward, she tells him, “I thought you would be lonely.” She pulls back in laughter when he lightly chops her head. “Sandalphon,” Djeeta says, still smiling, “I want to find my sky.”

-

The time to depart comes almost too quickly. But passing days are nothing to one who has lived as long as he has.

“Then…” Djeeta starts and stops, her eyes sweeping across the store with an expression Sandalphon only knows too well. He pretends to look away, pretends that something else has caught his attention until she speaks again: “I’m going now.”

Lifting his head, he sees she’s smiling again and his smile reflects hers. “Go find your sky.”

“Sandalphon,” she whispers, “thank you. Thank you for always watching over me.” Her voice starts to shake, but she forces one last sentence – “I will never forget you!” – before she dashes out the door, the chime of the bell announcing her departure, fading into silence.

He stares at the empty café interior, at the seats his friends used to take. Lyria and Gran who always sat next to each other, their mugs steaming with freshly brewed coffee; Lyria and Gran sitting a seat apart with their daughter between them, a small cup of coffee milk he’d perfected years ago for another girl placed between two larger cups. Their daughter, no longer young, her eyes sparkling so brightly as she runs in to tell him that she’d been proposed to as he makes her favourite coffee latte; their daughter, now married, with a young girl next to her, a small cup of coffee milk he hasn’t made in so many years placed in front of her–

“Your granddaughter is just like the two of you,” he says aloud. “You ought to be proud.”

Closing his eyes, he can see the three of them there, joking, laughing. They turn to him, all smiles, and Lyria whispers, _thank you, Sandalphon, you’ve worked so hard all these years!_

Gran clicks his tongue. _Sandy, you always end up working too hard!_

 _That’s because Sandalphon is too kind,_ their daughter adds, _he’s never been able to resist any of you._

Lyria laughs, a sound he’s almost forgotten for years until recently, and Gran follows, the two of them leaning into each other. He watches this, lifting a hand to his chest, and then turns to look out the glass into the night sky, darker than the one he wants to see.

“Sandalphon, you called for me?”

It takes him a second to realise he’s being spoken to. Sandalphon pulls his gaze from the window and looks towards one of his still living companions, a girl he’s fought alongside many battles – one who’s helped him take care of Djeeta all these years, someone who will continue to take care of her. He pulls an envelope out from the drawer and hands it over, the metal key inside sliding downwards as she takes it.

She tilts her head curiously. “This is?”

He gestures around them. “A key to this café. I want…her to have a place to return to, if she chooses it.”

Zooey pauses. “Sandalphon, you…”

“I’m going to find my sky,” he says.

-

Sandalphon walks her out and watches her go, wondering which ship the children have picked, what route the children have chosen as he stares upwards into night and twinkling stars.

Maybe, he thinks, it was just a touch too dramatic. But he’d always found himself weak to and easily influenced by blue.

Gran, Lyria… All the friends he’d made onboard the Grancypher who were no longer in this world–he’d watched them all leave with a smile on their lips, having lived the lives they wanted, with nothing holding them back.

This time he, too, has no other regrets.

-

He closes his eyes, and opens them.

The sky is pale above him, the gentle breeze against his skin carries the smell of flowers and coffee, a scent that instantly sends him back through two millennia of memories, to a time where he knew nothing and hoped in vain. He turns his head to see the garden, fuller than his last visit, coffee trees lining the perimeter, red and blue flowers grown in tandem by their side. Further away, more flowers, rainbow-hued, lined the garden, the house and the presence of the person he’s always wanted to meet again.

“Sandalphon?”

Sandalphon stares, swallows. He opens his mouth, closes it. There are so many words he wants to say, so many words he has to say, but he doesn’t know how or where to start. He chokes as he tries again, closing his eyes, the wetness in his eyes becoming tears that fall down his cheeks. Lucifer remains where he stands, waiting as he’s always waited, hope visible in his blue eyes, a smile on his lips.

Sandalphon smiles back.

**Author's Note:**

> "I'm back."


End file.
